


And what I once was, I am now stardust

by sonofahurricane



Category: War Boys (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofahurricane/pseuds/sonofahurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had always figured that warmth meant life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And what I once was, I am now stardust

When David pressed the staple gun to his lips, he thought, for a brief flicker, about what it would feel like. About whether or not a single staple would be enough. He imagined the dark and cold that he figured death was, and when he stapled his hand instead, the pain lighting his nerves like a firework, he laughed because it was an easy cheat, because he could feel his pulse in the palm of his hand. It was a throb no one could take away from him.

When George kissed him, David felt the coolness where his breath ghosted over the places his lips had left behind, and the heat of the two of them, George pressing against him, the only sound his gasps in the air conditioned air. His hand pulsed, ached, and he watched George’s cheeks redden, felt where the blood rushed to them against his face. When he kissed George back, he wondered if his own mouth could possibly be as warm, as safe, as the way the inside of George’s mouth felt.

He had always figured that warmth meant life. That was why there was no life on Mars, after all—far too cool, just beyond the reach of the sun. When his hand warmed with his own blood, he had made a fist, grinning around his wince, watching it spill out over his fingers and cool against his skin.

David knew, of course, that heat could kill you. He knew it was possible, that there was a reason you didn’t just wander aimlessly into the desert. But when George opened the truck, when Marta climbed inside, David wasn’t sure he understood death so fully any more. He wasn’t sure he understood anything any more.

He stood his ground, the crack in the air echoing in his ears. There was nothing, at first, not darkness, not the white-hot heat that the staple had produced. His fingers went slack for reasons he couldn’t be sure of, and then slowly, the rest of his muscles seemed to relax too. His legs wobbled, and George’s voice was in his ear, shouting too loudly. And then everything lit, and he grunted in pain, a ball in his throat keeping down any louder cries. His lips crackled as words spat from his lips, words he wasn’t even sure he was saying. He could feel, vaguely, George’s body against his back, could hear fucking Greg, Greg who had the gun now, shouting, but mostly he felt the pain, the electrical impulses of his body lighting up bright enough to power a city. His jaw slacked, like after a seizure, and everything seemed to run out of him at once. He sagged, his eyes glazing over, and the last little spark brought to him a memory of learning about stars in third grade, about the death of a star. There was the red giant phase, where the star stretched to its fullest, and then all the helium burned off and the star shrank into white dwarf, then into a black dwarf.

Some stars, though, stars bigger than the sun that he could almost feel against his face, exploded into a supernova as the star collapsed in onto its own core, and then became black holes, sucking objects into it and crushing them. David wondered briefly if he could be such a star, if he was slowly crushing George as his supernova flooded away from him.

His eyesight greyed, darkness hovering just out of reach. George’s hands, arms, around his body, the pulse-beat in his ears, each shaky breath that made his lips tremble. He was overcome, suddenly, by the desire to say something— _I’m sorry_ or _I love you_ or _I’m scared_ —but each breath brought with it a stab of light, each time dimmer, and he didn’t know what trying to force words would do. Instead, he wrapped one trembling arm over George’s shoulder, tried to feel the pulse in George’s neck against his face, instead feeling the vibrating of his vocal chords. His hand, the one he had stapled, rested just above the hole in his abdomen—he could feel neither one now. The cold had settled in, and the sand may as well have been snow as David’s body froze and slowly melted away. 


End file.
